Transition Digest

November 19, 2008|By Tribune news services

BIG CROWD: President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration has officials in the nation's capital bracing for an unprecedented turnout of possibly 3 million people or more, District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty said Tuesday. Such a turnout would easily eclipse the record set in 1965, when 1.2 million people attended Lyndon B. Johnson's inauguration. "I think you could have an inauguration that could be in the 3-to-5-million viewership ... either on the Mall or on the parade route," Fenty said.

CLINTON HELP: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has engaged three prominent lawyers to help Obama vet her candidacy for secretary of state even as some insiders criticized the pick and advisers to the former first lady said she was weighing whether to take the job if Obama offered it. Attorneys Cheryl Mills, David Kendall and Robert Barnett are working with the Obama transition team to review information about the Clintons' background and finances, including Bill Clinton's post-presidential business deals and relationships with foreign governments. All three represented the Clintons on legal matters in the White House, including Bill Clinton's dalliance with intern Monica Lewinsky that led to his impeachment in 1998. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was offered a spot as a senior member of the Senate team aiming to reform the nation's health-care system. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) who has announced plans to craft sweeping health-care legislation next year, asked Clinton to head a working group focused on insurance coverage. The offer comes a decade and a half after Clinton led a controversial effort to reshape the health-care system as first lady during her husband's first term.

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